Foreign and Economic Espionage Penalty Enhancement Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOODLATTE. I would like to thank Chairman Walden for his great work in this area and for his leadership on this issue.

I rise to strongly support House Concurrent Resolution 127.

Mr. Speaker, several hostile countries continue to pursue a U.N. takeover of the Internet through an organization known as the International Telecommunication Union, or ITU, which is an agency within the United Nations. In fact, a push is being made to negotiate international control of the Internet in Dubai this December. The U.N. is the absolute last entity that should have anything to do with managing the functioning of the Internet.

Currently, the private, nonprofit ICANN, which is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, performs this function. While ICANN is far from perfect, having this responsibility rest with a private entity helps foster market principles and is the most efficient way to administer the Internet's domain name system and root servers.

We must remain vigilant against efforts by foreign governments to consolidate the control of the Internet into a U.N.-centered body, which would lead to free speech and access restrictions and abuses. House Concurrent Resolution 127 will show Congress' unity behind this concept, and I strongly urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.

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